The Trials

(Trial by fire and tears)

Stolen!

That morning

cracked in rooster’s beak

like shards

by his foe-sacked

kilns *¹⁾ where he had been…

 

Stolen: no doubt!

The fire limp

and hooves stamped in the clay

spoke of war’s price:

with their master potter,

that night, the village paid.

 

For he, prized prisoner,

was taken

to foreign lands,

far shores. Now villagers

— chins hanging low–

his fate bemoaned.

 

Wind shaken stood his cottage,

door framed, his pale-eyed

wife held their son back.

“He is too little,” cried.

But, at 12 years old, the lad

had gleaned enough to dare and try.

 

He tugged her apchima for days.

“Allow me, eomeoni⁾ to light the kiln,

allow. To abeogi in my dream

last night I promised.”

She then smiled and wiped her eyes.

“Just one time, son.”

 

(Trial by water and earth)

So digging days long by the river

he found the soggy best,

scooped and lumped it back uphill

with hands like abeogi’s

–clay gloved by the yeast of earth–

forming, throwing it until just right.

 

One half he wheeled and then

its open twin in sameness joined,

made vessel whole

while at the seam, the edge em battled,

like his village struggled to survive

the war, close in: before and after. Heal.

 

In sleep then the boy slipped

with tired arms

on grasses spent and bent.

When dusk awakened,

with hungry eyes

his pot he met:

like pregnant eomeoni’s belly now

the top had slightly sagged,

yet mattered not.

Next eve the wood sparked,

candled ready, in the domed uphill,

then crackled hot.

 

(Trial by wind and fire)

Oven ablaze

the wind approved.

Its dragon tongue torpedoed

through the chambered kiln,

around the pot war waging

upon war itself.

 

All night the rumble raged

like furies at some shore,

fused, sealing powers’ trial

onto the mortal clay

by cinders bellowed

and translucent orbed.

 

As a new day the rooster open laid,

the villagers circled the son,

helped hoist his ware

out from hot smoke,

in wonder wiped its barrel size

and sagging –seen as proof–

 

to gasps gave way,

to tears of hope.

From ashes’ cover,

the youngest now

stood up:

a master potter of their own.

 

Notes:                                                          

1) At the end of Korea’s Imjin War (1592~98)

apchima (Korean): apron

eomeoni.(Korean): mother

abeogi (Korean): father